BRENTWOOD — A superior court judge has granted a request by Exeter Hospital to temporarily block attorneys from deposing hospital employees or requesting documents related to a hepatitis C outbreak that came to light earlier this year.

Exeter Hospital is named in 25 civil lawsuits filed in Rockingham Superior Court by former patients who now carry the liver disease.

A judge on Thursday granted a request by the hospital for a temporary stay of discovery in one of the lawsuits, which was filed by Manchester attorney Mark Abramson. The hospital argues it will save the court time and money to carry out depositions a single time, and to wait until all defendants who will be active in the lawsuit have been added.

The stay of discovery will stop lawyers from forcing Exeter Hospital employees, such as Chief Executive Officer Kevin Callahan, to give sworn statements about the hepatitis C outbreak for the next few months. It will also prevent them from questioning the doctors and nurses who worked side-by-side with David Kwiatkowski, the former Exeter Hospital cardiovascular technician facing drug tampering charges in connection with the outbreak.

Federal investigators say the 33-year-old spread the virus in the process of abusing stolen hospital narcotics. Kwiatkowski, a traveling hospital worker, allegedly stole syringes of the anesthesia drug fentanyl, injected himself, then allowed syringes contaminated with his blood to be reused on patients.

Genetic testing has confirmed that 32 patients are carrying a strain of the virus identical to the one carried by Kwiatkowski.

In a handwritten note, Judge Kenneth McHugh indicated the stay of discovery will be in effect until on or after Jan. 2, 2013, in the interest of putting off discovery until a structuring conference is held for the hospital and any other defendants added to the suit.

The hospital had originally asked for the discovery to be put off until at least 90 days after a structuring conference is held. Abramson objected, characterizing the request in a motion filed Tuesday as “gamesmanship” intended to allow the hospital to “hold on to its money.”

Abramson sent the hospital's attorney written discovery requests on Sept. 24, and subpoenaed Callahan to appear in court on Jan. 8, 2013, according to court documents.

“Time is on the hospital's side,” Abramson wrote. “It wants to hold onto its money as long as possible. Time is not on the plaintiff's side. She has a life threatening disease because Exeter Hospital allowed a drug addict to roam free in the cardiac catheterization lab, stealing fentanyl and infecting patients, without even the most basic safeguards in place.”

Among the defendants who could potentially be named in the lawsuit are two former medical staffing companies that employed Kwiatkowski. At least one attorney is also asking a judge to add the American Registry of Radiologic Technologists (ARRT) as one of the defendants. ARRT is the group that provided a radiology certificate for Kwiatkowski when he was later hired at Exeter Hospital.

Kwiatkowski had been employed as a traveling medical technician in at least 19 hospitals in eight states during the last decade, including stints in New York, Maryland, Michigan, Georgia, Kansas, Arizona and Pennsylvania. His arrest has spurred more than a dozen hospitals to begin reviewing their patient records to identify people who may have been exposed to the virus.

Before he was hired in Exeter, Kwiatkowski was fired by hospitals in Pennsylvania and Arizona due to problems with his conduct. In one instance in 2010, Kwiatkowski was found passed out inside a men's restroom while working at the Arizona Heart Hospital.

Springboard Staffing, which supplied Kwiatkowski to work at Arizona Heart Hospital, said it fired him immediately and notified a state radiology board and ARRT. The incident was never investigated by the state board because Kwiatkowski moved away and gave up his certification to work in Arizona.

Earlier this year, ARRT responded to questions from Foster's by indicating the Arizona incident didn't meet its “standard of evidence enabling the organization to remove his ARRT credential.” The group did seek information from Kwiatkowski and the Phoenix police, but the police department did not file criminal charges, according to ARRT. In addition, Kwiatkowski provided ARRT with a “plausible explanation” for the incident, as well as evidence he passed a drug test the day after it happened.

Kwiatkowski went on to work in hospitals in Pennsylvania, Kansas and Georgia before reaching New Hampshire. At least four patients of the Hays Medical Center in Kansas, where Kwiatkowski worked in 2010, have also been diagnosed with cases of hepatitis C “closely related” to the strain identified in the Exeter Hospital outbreak.